Monday, May 4, marks a new beginning for 57-year-old Jeff Kepner.  He is the first person in the United States to receive a double hand transplant in just one 9-hour operation.  The Augusta, Georgia, man is said to be in critical but stable condition at the University of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) Medical Center Montefiore, where the ground-breaking transplant surgery was performed.  Two surgical teams worked simultaneously to transplant the two hands at the same time.

Kepner lost his hands and both his feet in May 1999 when a devastating bacterial infection damaged them beyond hope of recovery.  He is one of the first potential transplant candidates to fulfill the stringent screening requirements for the procedure.

Along with new hands, Kepner will also get a bone marrow transplant from the same donor in an effort to make his new hands more compatible with his own natural immune system.  If the bone marrow transplant proves successful, Kepner will need just a single anti-rejection drug for lifetime maintenance.

Kepner is expected to remain in the hospital for about a month and looks forward to a three-month-long stint of intensive rehabilitation to gain maximum use of his new hands.